


Lycan Problems

by imacashew



Category: Monster of the Week (Tabletop RPG)
Genre: 90s references, Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Gruesome descriptions, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 10:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18737083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imacashew/pseuds/imacashew
Summary: In 1995, a werewolf from upstate NY came to New York City. She was going to find a cure for herself or die trying.—Some ficlets about my MotW character, Jaci Lake, grunge punk werewolf.





	1. Turned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Better dead than turned, right?

_Better dead than turned._

That’s what her father told her when he taught her how to shoot when she was fifteen.

That’s what he told her brother. And what his father told him. And his father’s father.

_Better dead than turned._

It became a mantra through the years, echoing through the synapses of her brain.  Constantly in her daily life and dreams at night.

_Better turned than dead._

When she woke up in a puddle of blood that wasn’t her own and bleeding slashes across her face and bicep, slicing through the family mark, and her breath caught in her throat.

When she turned her head next to her to see her brother’s eyes blank and lifeless with a vision of horror frozen on his face, she knew he was always the lucky one.

She could already feel the feral fire in her veins, burning and wanting to be free.

She couldn’t let that happen.  The wolf wasn’t allowed to take over.

She couldn’t stay there. Her own family would kill her.

She wasn’t them anymore.

With only her brother’s jacket and duffle with a shotgun to her name, she caught a bus down south.

She would cure herself or die. There were no other options.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yet another collection dedicated to a tabletop rpg character. 
> 
> Jaci’s family was dedicated to hunting werewolves, if that wasn’t clear.


	2. Shift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shifting is pain.

The first time she shifted from human to wolf, the pain was unbearable.

Bones breaking and reforming.

Organs changing, failing and restarting.

Vocal cords ripped and reformed, screams halting in her throat.

Everything was failing and starting, all at once.

A broken leg was nothing.

Bleeding gashes to the bone were nothing.

Normal pain was nothing compared to this.

Every full moon, every willing shift.

Pain, pain, pain.

It never got easier as months ran on.

When she joined The Order, she was constantly around people. People who barely knew her. People who learned to know what she was.

If she was going to shift, it was going to be out of sight. They didn’t need to see her bones breaking, organs failing, screams halting in her throat.

She didn’t want anyone to see her cry and the tears turn into a snarl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the aspects that I think about with werewolves is the transformations. How painful it is to change from human to wolf. 
> 
> My favorite explanation of this comes from BBC’s Being Human, which I was an avid watcher of back in the day.


	3. Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As childhoods go, it wasn't the worst.

As childhoods went, Jaci supposed it wasn’t the worst.

Sure, Dad liked Inti more because he was a boy and older, but it was fine. She didn’t starve, had a home, got an education (an unorthodox one, but an education nonetheless).

The best things she’d enjoy about childhood were the stories Mom told. Ones she heard from her ancestors and passed them onto her and her brother.

When Dad was away hunting, Mom wove stories of the shifters of the First Nations: the _limmikin_ , the _Ya-Ya_ , and the _yee naadlooshii._

The dark forces that corrupt the shapeshifters usually became a warning, but that didn’t matter.

Other stories would talk about the spirits and the creation of the world and everyone in it.  

Jaci used to like those the best.

Creation, not destruction.

Her family had to have loved her in their own way. With ruffles of hair and teaching her how to hunt. With stories of their ancestors on both sides, the People and the colonizers.  With bear hugs from her big brother with a wide grin on his face.

As she sits hundreds of miles away, on a hard mattress next to a weird but likable kid, a college graduate with lousy acting skills and premonitions, and a wolf prowling under her skin, she tries to think that it could have gone much worse.

That she could have gone much worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a small introspective piece?
> 
> Jaci is half-Native American and half-white (European American, I guess). I wanted to touch on that gently, but I still need to research some more to make it feel okay to me. I don't want to feel or be ignorant about it.


	4. Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Familiarity.

She had been flicking through the Order’s werewolf literature when she saw it. 

Very familiar diagrams of a werewolf in their varied forms.  

The beast. The wolf-man.

She tapped the base of the skull, then the left side of the chest. 

A well-aimed shot  _ there  _ and  _ there _ with a silver bullet meant instant death. 

She tapped the knees. 

Shots there would cripple them. 

Tap on the clawed hands. 

More difficult to attack. 

She dug her nail into the clavicle of the diagram. 

Pin them there with a silver-plated knife, they would have to beg for your mercy. 

She closed the book and rested her forehead on the embossed cover, eyes burning with unshed tears. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She’d have to know how to kill some werewolves, you know.


	5. Bad Ideas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m a fan of bad ideas, but this is a terrible idea.”

“I’m a fan of bad ideas, but this is a terrible idea,” she bit out, stomping down the twinge of anxiety in her stomach.

The boat got smaller as it sailed toward the unknown in the center of the lake with the Idiot Actor and Weird Kid.

She glanced up at Red, then at the crossbow in the other woman’s perfectly manicured hands.

This whole “team” was a bad idea.

Jaci was always full of dumb ideas, as reckless as she was. It’s what nearly got her killed the night before.

And what broke her leg the week previously in the hotel.

And trusting weird, old men with the promise of being cured from this awful curse.

And what got her brother killed and changed her forever.

As the nightstalker launched itself out of the lake and sent Alex and Adrian flying into the water, Jaci merely let out a shout of, “Oh shit!”

This was probably going to be another terrible night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by our last session and a line I said in-character, I had to write this one out as soon as we ended. 
> 
> Jaci is full of bad decisions.
> 
> Alex - “Idiot Actor”, The Chosen One  
> Adrian - “Weird Kid”, The Spooky  
> Red - aka Sienna, The Crooked


End file.
